Foster Mum

On Sunday, two King Charles Spaniels, Lexie and Ivy, arrived at our house, to the delight of my youngest and the horror of my eldest! My little girl has always loved dogs and never misses an opportunity to ask a passing owner if she may stroke his or her pet. While five years ago my response to the suggestion of dog ownership would have been, 'over my dead body', repeated interactions with all sorts of breeds and friendly owners, and a little dog-sitting in Yorkshire, has mellowed me. I love my cat dearly, but he does not love me and he is aloof and stand-offish. That's fine, he's a cat, but there is something about my arrival causing a tail to wag that warms my heart. So I am beginning to consider the issue and we are having a trial run. Even if we decide against, having dogs for a week occasionally is better for my daughter than never having dogs.
Lexie and Ivy are high maintenance! It's not the practical needs that worry me, feeding twice and day, letting in the garden to do their business and walking round the block, it's the emotional need. They look up at me, their eyes pools of earnest desire, wagging their tails in unison, and I have no idea what they want. The door is open and they can go play, I have fed them, I have exercised them, I have tickled their ears. I am failing them in some way. When their owner left on Sunday, she reminded me not to feel guilty about how much activity or attention they got. 'In the kennels,' she told me, 'they would be in a concrete cell and have three lots of twenty minutes exercise.' I am doing much better than that. They have had the run of the garden, three children to play with, the sofa to sit on (yes, really, I am such a softie!) and two walks a day - even in the pouring rain. But I can't quite escape the feeling that I am a disappointment!
Perhaps I need to find my affirmation from another source!

First Steps to a million!

My middle son has set up business as a baker. He sat outside our house this morning with twenty excellent muffins, which he had cooked himself, and sold them to the neighbours. I had hoped for a few passing school children and there were none but the comings and goings, and kindesses, of those who live around us soon cleared his stock. He thinks cookies might sell better, and a friend has offered her garden close to a local school as a pitch so we'll be trying again. He made three or four pounds profit, and still has plenty of ingredients towards next week. He'll need to repay the initial investment, plus a 10% return, and will need to buy more chocolate chips for the cookies, but should see some profit if he sells them all. His aim is to make £100 for kestrels, which we learned this summer are in decline across the country.
It was hard work and I was nervous for him, and grateful to the neighbours for helping him out, but it was good experience. He admitted that it was more work than he'd realised. I have set him the task of planning for next week and presenting me with an action plan: there will be no reminders. It has played havoc with my carefully planned timetable and sticking to a start time of 9:30am meant that nothing else got done this morning, hence the late post, but he is proud of himself and his achievement and I am proud of myself for stepping out of my routine and comfort zone and letting him begin to follow a dream.

Toy Story 3

We made it to the cinema yesterday, after our failed attempt on Tuesday, to see 'Toy Story 3'.
We all enjoyed it and had a great discussion over lunch around waste-disposal, the rise and maintainance of dictatorships, whether a character damaged by rejection can be described as evil and the nature of mercy.
I was expecting a proper tear-jerker and had ensured that I had a good supply of tissues in readiness for the ending, having heard tales of the final scenes making grown men cry. It was not, however, the final parting of teenaged boy and his faithful toys that moved me, but the near destruction of the gang as they battled to reach their owner. Despite knowing that this would not be the end (after all what kind of kids' film climaxes with the heroes incinerated?) I had to wipe away a few tears.

"We should pay close attention to the things that make us cry, for
there we are not far from the heart of God or our own." ("Running
on Empty" Fil Anderson)

So, in a moment of unexpected prickling in my eyes, I ask myself, what is it about this that is moving me? In this case, deep friendship, trials endured, victories won, growing up, real connections, acceptance of the end? Stuff close to my heart.

Waterloo Road

There had been some mention of 'Waterloo Road' in the Home Ed e-group, about how the BBC1 school-based drama was to open the new series with a story-line involving two home educated children, about how prejudiced and ill-informed this was going to be, replaying a typical stereotype with no regard for truth. I wasn't sure if I wanted to watch, after all I have better things to do than deliberately let myself get wound up, but I didn't want to miss out on the ensuing discussions, so at 8pm last night I settled in front of the TV. Sure enough the portrayal of the home educating family was ridiculous, exaggerated and like no family I have ever come across in the Home Ed world. The children really were, in the words of one of the other pupils, 'home ed freaks'. However, the school seemed to have a staff of around 7, including the ex-pupil, pregnant, teen-aged Head's PA and the highly unprofessional and over-emotional Headmistress who, apparently, had nothing better to do than sit in her office and deal with naughty children who had been sent out of lessons for talking too much.

While the younger of the newly-integrated home ed siblings was determined to get herself expelled by making a smoke bomb in Biology and aggravating another student into assaulting her, the older lad was more philosophical. His turning point came when, while watching some other lads kicking a ball around, the Head drew alongside him and let him know that the way he could thank his dad for all his hard work was by "being your own person, doing your own thing." This inspired the boy to join in the football game, a symbol of his new found freedom from the shackles of his father. At the climax of the episode, this boy shouted at his dad, "you made us too different, like we were supposed to forget about having mates, going out, talking to girls."

One of my primary reasons for my educational choice, and I think many of the home ed mums I know would say the same, is to let my children discover and delight in who they are, to do their own thing, free from the shackles of imposed curricula and intense peer pressure. Part of that is meeting a wide variety of other children, experiencing all sort of places and, even, talking to girls! We spent yesterday hanging out in the Hampshire countryside with a crowd of other home ed families, playing, racing, riding tractors and enjoying ourselves. There were no families there remotely like the one the BBC would have the world believe we are. Although, I guess, if they did exist, somewhere, they would be locked away, indoors, on their own!

September

September is here again. I’ve had a break from the blog, but have been starting to miss it. An unexpected stab of jealousy when one friend told me that she would be starting one, and again when another mentioned hers, led me to think about returning. So I’ve changed the look and come back fresh. Only I don’t feel so fresh. It’s been a tough few months with a close family member having major surgery. The op was six weeks ago and yet the situation currently seems worse than before. I keep thinking that we have ‘turned a corner’ but it’s not the case, at least not yet.
My husband went back to school yesterday (in August!) and I thought I’d take the children to the cinema. I am used to the cinema being empty on weekday, on the rare occasions I go, and had not accounted for the fact that most children are not back at school yet and that I was not the only one with “2for1” vouchers from Tesco. It was full! Three disappointed children and our end of holiday treat, well, just not.
I am planning to ‘start term’ on Monday but I don’t want the next few days to drift by. I now have a DVD film to watch (we rented a couple as a ‘making up for missing the cinema’ treat and it seemed right to get two at the time, but I can’t remember why!) and repeat cinema trip to fit in. We have a Sports Day to go to and a Home Ed group to return to, but it all feels like rather random pieces. I really want to get some rhythm back. Following this desire, I have laminated individual time-tables for the children to start crisp and clean on Monday, but my middle son wants to sell muffins to the school kids passing and we will have two borrowed dogs to walk. In my efforts to achieve order and routine, perhaps what I really need is school!

And yet, I have all this to remember:

Around the corner

This blog has begun to feel like a burden. I know that my mother and mother-in-law and brother’s family in the US read it and keep up to date with my family. I use it as a memory-jogger when I write the children’s birthday cards or review the year. But it has begun to feel like a chore. I feel a heavy presence of an invisible readership expecting things of me, things I don’t feel like delivering right now. I crank up the pressure on myself and live in a fantasy world in which people criticize me for not doing what they want, for failing in some way, for not being as good as they expected. Perhaps I am just not as good as I expect. I would love to be a writer. Do I have the skill? I’m not sure. Right now, though, I know that I don’t have the time. My focus is called to be elsewhere. I believe that I am called, to invest all that I have and all that I am in raising my three children. Immediately, I can hear the criticism, am I a ‘helicopter parent’, hovering over my children, micro-managing every part of their lives? Am I living my life vicariously through them? Would I just not cut it in the world of employment?
A while ago, someone I trust very much told me that I needed to be a place where I was content to be forgotten, to be insignificant. Well, I don’t know about content, but I guess I’m curious to see what God might have in store for me in the secret places of obscurity. Not a position of leadership in the church, not a speaker or a writer, not most the popular or most contributing volunteer at the local community run. Doing nothing for my reputation or to influence how others will feel about me. And letting go of the blog for a while seems a part of that. I might drop in from time to time, if the mood takes me, but for now, I’m letting go of the expectations I place on myself to post regularly and I will wait to see what is around the corner.

Choir Concert

We spent yesterday afternoon at our choir concert/sing-through. We thoroughly enjoyed The Otherwise Choir last term and were disappointed (but understanding) when the end-of-term Christmas concert was cancelled. It was not possible for our beloved choir mistress to lead us this term and so we have been choir-less. Yesterday's get-together was a much belated full-stop to the term's work.
It was good to see old friends and to be re-affirmed in the community of home-edders that I am part of. We are a disparate bunch and, although we meet up at various activities occasionally and have much e-group contact, it is a heart-warming feeling to be together and participating in something communal.
Many of the choir members brought additional contributions: violin, trumpet, drama and song. It was fascinating and encouraging to me to see older children, who have never been to school, so accomplished and assured. It was fun to see the children, ranging from around 5 to 15 playing and laughing together afterwards.
My three each chose to read a poem, (my middle son, in fact, read two poems, one of which was his own compostition, and the beginning of a story he's writing,) and a number of people were kind enough to offer compliments on their performance. It was one of those moments when I have to remind myself to step back and appreciate what has happened. Through countless afternoons of tea and baking and poetry, all of my children feel comfortable with verse and confident to read aloud and I truly believe that the years of 'chapter books', the hours I have spent with them on the sofa immersed in classic children's books and more modern literature, has allowed a love of language to take root and to grow.
It is hard sometimes to see the progress made as my children learn and grow and it is occasions like Sunday afternoon when I see them shine and I can allow myself to feel that Home Ed is working for us and I am doing a good job!